The Apocalypse Done Right

Where to begin, well, I'll break it up into sections for your own convenience.

Graphics

This section isn't exceptionally important, but some people just HAVE TO HAVE perfect graphical appliances, so here we go.

The graphics being 2009 (OMG 2 years ago!!!!!1!) are just, brilliant. The zombies look like they should, bloodthirsty, sometimes injured, sometimes dead. The gore is especially over-the-top, which most games don't normally take it into account that a Spas-12 can blow a midget-sized hole in someone's chest. This game not only does that, but it also adds the appropriate blood spray, screams, and fully depicted organs/bones.

The guns themselves also look like the perfect weapons of destruction, from the katana to the cricket bat, to the AK-47 and the chrome shotgun. Everything is in order. PERFEEEECT order. All the special effects are also near cinematic in the way they, well, do stuff. Such as a propane tank being shot, a loud bang, a burst of flames and sparks, and a pile of dismembered zombies on the ground spread around a 20 foot radius.

Let's not forget the people you play as! Every single one of them looks like they were ripped out of real life, handed a gun and told to shoot everything that moves. They blink, talk, breathe, gasp around Smokers, yell, yelp, run, jump, climb, walk, limp, and die. All in extremely beautiful fashion.

To summarize graphics, they are better than most games these days such as Homefront.

Gameplay

Valve handles this game like only Valve can, very fashionably and utilitarian. That means both nice to look at and to use.

The HUD (Heads Up Display) shows and tells you everything you need to know. You will always be able to locate teammates in a hurry, gather objectives, and pick up all the little things you find. This is all accomplished through a unique technique Valve uses which puts a colored outline around objectives, items, and players to where you can see them when they go around a corner (the players) or jump through a window.

This also can tell you the current state of the player through a color coated system of outlines for the players ONLY. Say, Nick (one of the players) is in perfect health and he goes around a corner, his outline will show up green, but if he was badly hurt, his outline would be red.

Gameplay includes controls, and they are also very usable and simple. All of the controls are similar to most Valve games, so fans of Valve will feel at home. The only major differences from most games is that reload is B and crouch is LB. But, there is also a handy little feature that allows your player to snap around quickly to face anything behind them.

Sound

Like all Valve games, no sound is left out, from the perfectly timed musical scores when the Horde attacks, to the blasts from a shotgun, everything is quite in check.

This also includes the sounds of the Special Infected, and the plain Infected. The Special Infected each have unique and eerie cries. From the Smoker's excessive coughing, to the Hunter's bloodthirsty cries. The Infected also have their own moans, groans, screams, and their Horde Cry, in which every zombie in the area attacks at once.

Let's not forget the gorey sounds too! When blasted with a shotgun, the infected will give a cry, you'll hear a kind of squishing sound, like melons being crushed and sliced at the same time. You can also hear the sickening thud of a zombie taking a plunge after taking a Desert Eagle to the chest.

The environment also has it's unique sounds, such as dogs barking in urban areas to birds frantically fleeing the area. All of the explosions and bursts of flames and all that are all top notch in the sound book. Every gun has a realistic and militarily correct sound. From the Spas-12 to the Desert Eagle. All is as it should be.

Multiplayer

All right, I had to write this section because alot of trolls out their, all they want is multiplayer, so I'll tell you about it.

The multiplayer is basically this, a team of 4 survivors, hopefully friends because they'll be depending on each other for survival, and a team of 4 Special Infected, fight against each other while the Survivors try to complete whatever objective it is they need to complete.

Now, these objectives are Scavenge, in which the Survivors gather Gas Cans to escape the Infected. Versus, in which the Survivors and the Infected simply combat and try to kill each other while the Survivors attempt to reach the Safe House without dying. Campaign, in which 4 friends simply play the normal campaign together and try not to die. Realism, in which the outline I mentioned earlier is removed, along with most of the HUD, same as Campaign, gameplaywise. And a combination of Realism and Versus, I think you can figure out what that is.

Now, like I said for the Survivors, the controls for the Infected are easy to use and remember, basically the same except the Survivors pick stuff up and the Infected can't and so on. Infected also have largely the same HUD, except no ammo bar or anything, just health, a reticule, and your teammates health.

That about wraps up multiplayer, explore the options and have fun. Now, I gotta get back to the Safe House, like I said, it's the Apocalypse done right.